My Little Pony XCVII: Cheerilee's Lonely Hearts Club

[Alabenson]

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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To be honest, I feel like I should have liked this episode a lot more than I did, particularly because it had a lot of very interesting things going on. To start with the good;
- I loved the way they had Spike freaking out in the same way that Twilight would. The special nature of the relationship between Twilight and Spike is probably one of the most underutilized ideas in the show, and the idea that Spike is close enough to Twilight to have picked up some of her habits really works well with that.
- Similarly, the idea that Spike is Equestria's official friendship ambassador to the dragons really helps cement the notion of how much Spike achieved last season, which honestly had some of the best Spike moments in the entire series.
- Finally, I think the idea that the map could potentially call on Spike to solve a friendship problem is particularly intriguing and I think that there's a great deal of story potential there.

Unfortunately, this last point is also something of a weakness for the episode, since having the map alert Spike to a friendship problem didn't facilitate solving that problem (i.e. the Ember/Thorax conundrum), but it actively impeded it since Spike was then further dividing his attention away from his friends looking for an additional problem.
This also ties back into my main issue with the episode, which is yet again we have a Spike episode where Spike is entirely the architect of the main problem. As entertaining as watching Spike try to resolve a problem that could have been solved with a basic amount of communication, it does get tiring for almost every Spike episode to be entirely a case of "Spike screws up and has to dig himself out". I think a large part of this problem could have be alleviated if the writers had at least included a line or two that would have let the audience believe that letting Ember and Thorax meet really would have led to disaster.

That being said, though, it wasn't a bad episode, I think the conflict just needed a little more polish. I'll give it a B-.

[Pendulous]

Spoiler: new episode

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I still don't know why people don't like Starlight. That is all.

Oh, and I guess I have to comment how meta it was when Ember kept claiming how similar Starlight and Twilight are.

[Deadly]

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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Thorax's new body and stature still doesn't fit his old voice at all. It's so weird. Still not a big fan of the design either. I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

Okay, that map is just getting cocky now. If my head started randomly blinking, I'd take a hammer to that thing and tell it to cut the crap out. If it wants to tell me something, it can use words like a normal, civilized ... table.

Why is this episode called Triple Threat? After Thorax showed up I expected some third party to show up too. It should have been called Double Threat, or there should have been a third guest.

Ember does have a point, these ponies sure seem to like names that all mean basically the same. Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer ... it's probably a good thing Sunset Shimmer doesn't hang around Ponyville.

Digo is right, Starlight is a perfectly fine character when she lays off the uber-magic and just acts normal. I find her less and less offensive and more and more likable with each down-to-earth episode of her.

I liked this one. Not the greatest episode ever, or anything, but nice.

[Adderbane]

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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Why is this episode called Triple Threat? After Thorax showed up I expected some third party to show up too. It should have been called Double Threat, or there should have been a third guest.

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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The third threat was the map calling Spike

[DigoDragon]

I think you should have said

Spoiler: Triple Threat and New Vegas

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New Vegas version.
I sided with NCR and made friends with Brotherhood of Steel, crazy gun nuts in an abandoned air force base with a functioning bomber, and even former Enclave members.
Just the sight of B15 pounding on marching Legions gives me joy.

Heh, yeah, probably should have. That's actually a good comparison.

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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First things first, let me say that I called the whole Spike-as-Ambassador plot.

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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Ambassador? More like dum-bassador, am I right? ;)

Heh, nah it's okay. Spike is just learning it the hard way as his mentor Twilight did.

Spoiler: new episode

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Oh, and I guess I have to comment how meta it was when Ember kept claiming how similar Starlight and Twilight are.

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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That was one of the more amusing parts of the episode.

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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Thorax's new body and stature still doesn't fit his old voice at all. It's so weird. Still not a big fan of the design either. I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

Okay, that map is just getting cocky now. If my head started randomly blinking, I'd take a hammer to that thing and tell it to cut the crap out. If it wants to tell me something, it can use words like a normal, civilized ... table.

Spoiler: Triple Treat

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I'm not into the new changeling look either. I thought the dark bugpone look was much cuter. Now they look like... I dunno. butterflies or something.

I guess when they repaired the table a while back, the fix came with some unresolved quirks.

[Aotrs Commander]

So. Aside from not having AccAtt out for the convention, I realised first thing this morning I couldn't find the angel hair fo the nebulas anyway (I have only a cursoary guess they may be buried in one of my piling systems, since they were nowhere in any of the places they were supposed to be). Which was annoying, though we did have a little spare red angel hair to take for my mate to cut up.

This, naturally, lead to me and Dad not re-stacking the car properly, and his toolbox full of figures balancing where it shouldn't and my dice box, instead of being tucked away to explictly avoid it, fell over and broke open, So we had to pull up in a side street before we'd gone more than half a road - mindful of not going near a drain - and scamble to get dice back. True to form, while we didn't lose any down the drain this time, we do appear to have lost two falling into the car (we might be able tyo dig them out at some point, but only with an empty boot).

Convention was pretty quiet, though we had one interestm and a little lad played with his dad for about half an hour (I had wisely set-up - with the release- an absolute, really-bending-the-system-out-of-shape 700 point game with foru starships, about as far as you can stretch AccAtt down this occurance) and a couple of people expressed interest in the rules.

The battle itself between the brand-new wodef Enclave and the Xyriat Hegemony (the Wodef only got their field test of Thursday, where my mate (not aided by me being knackered and not helping him properly, got creamed).

Photos curtusy of SmugMug, whom I am trying the 14-day trial before attempting a subscription, as my replacement for Photobucket.

(To crown the day, I got back and found - naturally - all of the phots of Dad's table were fine, and almost all of mine were crap. What follows is the best I could salvage...)

Spoiler

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Dad's table:





Look, it's nearly out...




Wodef Enclave Brief

For the last year, the UCDR and the Xyriat Hegemony have been displaying unusual behaviour. The UCDR suddenly began funnelling vessels and supplies (mostly foodstuffs, as we have determined) through their Node Station to an unknown point. However, it was not until the Xyriats launched their own expedition in force through the Galahyirit Sector that it came to our full notice. We have been able to determine that one of the UCDR’s period extreme-deep-range explorations reached a sector the other side of the galaxy and established a new Node Station there.

As yet, we have not been able to establish much intelligence on what is on the other side, only that the UCDR’s station is near to a major power and the quadrant is highly populated with sentient races closer to the UCDR paradigm, not Elenthnar.

It is vital that we gain our own grasphold in this new territory – it is not likely to be long before the other powers notice what is going on – the Phystyulons in particular are likely to notice what is going on shortly.
We launched a probing force to assess the current defences the Xyriats had in the Galahyirit Sector. The probing force hit the Xyriats hard. Their inexperienced commander played right into our hands. It appeared as though we were going to be able to punch through the Xyriat defences before they could gather their forces.

However, the Xyriat’s sector admiral proved to be playing a longer game. The Xyriat force began to retreat to GV space. We were in hot pursuit. But before we could finalise their destruction, the depafo¹ -favoured Halgat arrived with a Vydrosa G-Well Battleship. The timing was perfect, slamming our force back to normal space before we could drive more than a few seconds. At extreme range, the Vydrosa, identified as the HNV 34986 Sodroka, was perfectly positioned. We made to approach, but both vessels jumped to GV space before we could reach them. We swung about to jump after the main Xyriat fleet, only to be brought up sharply by the Halgat and the Sodroka once more. Guided by the Halgat’s accused drones, we spent the next several hours fruitlessly trying to bring them to battle or pursue the main fleet. When we finally got close enough to inflict damage on both vessels, they still both managed to escape, despite the Halgat being fired upon by the LK06#5’s² main guns!

This means that we will have to engage the main Xyriat fleet after all. The only good news is at least the Halgat and the Sodroka have been forced out of the fighting.


¹Depafo: a mythical elenthnar demon of randomisation that is said to delight in manipulating probability to the detriment of its victims.

²The Wodefs use base-12, rather than the base-10 favoured by the Xyriats (among others). (The variation is believed to have its roots in an early classical scholar who beleived the thumb was a different organ to a finger.) The simplified romanisation of 10 and 11 is * and #, thus the ship is the "LK-zero-six-eleven-five."

Overview (of not-great quality, it must be admitted)


Wodef Enclave fleet at game start:




Xyriat Hegemonic Navy deployment


The Xyriats, having learned from their last battle, started out moving almost not at all, while casung the Wodefs to have to charge at them. The Wodefs could not afford to go too fast, lest they be unable to slow down once they passed the Xyriats. This lead to two rounds of pummeling from the Xyriat's railguns. The result was one battlecruiser crippled and unable to enter FTL by the of second bound.


By the third round, though, the Wodefs were in position, and their heavy lazer beams wrecked merciless havoc on the Xyriat forces, destroying their superdreadnought, two Calgast munitions destroyers (high-value targets) and severly damaging their escorts with proximity spread.

The Xyriats had managed to lock on enough tractor beams (before losing some to the destruction of their Dreadnought) to sharply stall the Wodef's own Dreadnought. Just shy of grabbing hold and establishing a full tractor lock, the result short stop dropped the dreadnoguht to Cruise speed and the one point of enegine damage was enough to drop the drives down to the next target number threshold.

The price of the last round, however, was that the following round, having fired all their heavy beams, they gas almost no firing to do, giving the battered Xyriats a chance at revenge. the Wodef dreadnought started to speed up, but its escorts still had to decelerate down to cruise speed (the bottom category aside from actual Stop) to keep in formation with it.

The two remaining of the four Calgastmuntions launchers fired a devasting spread of blast torpedoes from their rear tubes (ignoring the currently-useless Wodef squadron above them seen here) and almost completely destroyed the Wodef's missile corvette squadron.


The Xyriat battlecruiser weathered the desultory missile and torpedo fire from the temporaily nearly-unarmed Wodefs. The ~Wodef dreadnought died in a welter of fire, and three cruisers were destroyed or crippled. The final blow came when the Xyriat tractor-runners got a lock on the remainng Wodef battlecruiser. These small vessels (the smallest ones, centre) are basically a small craft with two tractor arrays and big engines and shields. The battlecrusier - dropped to cruise to keep pace with the dreadnought - was now slow enough to properly grabbed. So next round, (in the movement phase, before it could do anything about it), all the tractor-runners would have to do would to put their loud pedals down and cheerfully whip off across the battlefield - and because the battlecruiser was held at the same orientation and range as when it was hit, smash the hapless vessel right into the asteroid belt (seen in the upper left).



That was the point I resigned (in good humour - nice to know after fourteen years, tractors beams FINALLY worked as a weapon!) While the next round (had we the time and the Wodefs the will to fight on) would likely have killed a couple more Xyriats, but the untouched Xyriat heavy rail cruisers (the three in the bottom right corner) would have marmalised the last heavy cruiser (that was not a drone carrier or transport), and effectively end the Wodef's ability to fight anyway.

It was a close game, and until that last tractor-runner thing, the Wodef looked like they might carry the day. But what we both learned from this was the to fight the Wodefs, the Xyriat could have done with deploying in a little bit more depth; the Calgasts, fragile and high-value as they despite the Xyrait's best efforts (they are a very high value target) could have done with being a little bit further back, so elements in front would have been able to hopefully intercept the Wodef more (and thus give the Calgasts more breathing room). (Not to say the Xyriat's tactics were bad, just that we now knew how to refine them - this was only their second game against the Wodefs.)

What is MOST interesting though is how the two fleets panned out. As we realised on Thursday (and experimented today), the Wodefs are ideally suited to a series of fast passes, rushing into range, firing all their heavy beams and then using the recharge round to fly past, out and start to come around for the second pass. And what is a good way to stop that? Tractor beams, so that you can grab the Wodefs and hold 'em still to butcher them during that round of recharge. So, entirely accidently, (since the base operational design of both fleets was independant) the Xyriats have a fleet with a good counter to the Wodefs already! Sometimes, I amaze myself...!

And now for the terrfiying moment youve all been dreading: Humorous Pictures!

Spoiler

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No, Spike, I said LOW-DEFinition TV.

And none of those is even a carrier vessel!

(Yeah, I was/am reaching. I was knackered, okay!

And yes, only when typing this post did I realise that using the Drone Carrier would have meant I could have properly done a "Wo-definiton CV" pun. Frag-dammit.)

[Thanqol]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Z5gkfH_CE
Thanqol...,*sings*

*rides into Ponythread on a giant robotic hamster wheel powered by meteorites made out of evil magic uranium, running over dozens of ponythreaders on the way in while shooting green lightning everywhere, finishing with a sick jump over a ramp*

YEAAAAAAAAAA

CAUGHT UP ON HORSES AND HORSE ASSOCIATED MEDIA MY BROS

PONIES

woo

[b_jonas]

Hi guys! The new episode (E15) came out during the weekend, and I'm only watching it now.

Spoiler: S7 E15

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S7 E15 Triple Threat, comments as I watch.

• Ah great. So the cold open makes it clear that Spike has invited both Thorax and Ember. He's playing the butt of the joke again. I hope Twilight will be helpful for him.
• Great. Now Spike's learned silly scary fantasies from Twilight too.
• They recommend a trip to the castle for Thorax? Isn't that backwards? They should send Thorax to the spa and Ember to the castle.
• Why does thorax have only one of those transparent wings? And is it growing out of his butt?
• The welcome banquet for Ember is fruits and cakes and similar pony food, with no gems? (Two seconds later) Ah, I see. It's in a stone bowl, and Ember is now eating that. Clever.
• Oh don't worry, Starlight. The castle is literally growing out of the ground. There's more of it than a small dragon queen will eat.
• No way. It's not the map. The dragon queen is summoning him. Haven't you learned that from the previous dragon episode?
• Hi, Star Bright! We rarely see Star Bright in the foreground.
• “Castle food” was a good save by the way, Starlight.
• Hehe. Poor Derpy.
• Oh finally! Now at least Spike is showing an example to Thorax by helping ponies with that seat. It's a little thing, but it's a start, and better than any of the stuff he's done so far in this episode.
• Wait, you're trying to scare a dragon queen by growling? I think you picked the wrong fight, Thorax.
• (End of episode) Ok, well it's still a bit unclear if it was really the map or just the dragon queen summoning him and then ending the summons, but since the map did show a floating Spike head, I guess it may have been the map.
• It was an OK episode. Not excellent, but OK. As long as they keep doing this and are able to sprinkle enough really good episodes between, we'll be fine for this season. But I fear that's not what will happen.

Updates: more about the episode.

Spoiler: S7 E15 further thoughts

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You know when Ember said she and Twilight look and behave so similar? Yes, I know out of universe it was a jab at the fans. But in universe, it totally makes sense from Ember's perspective. They look similar to her, because as a dragon, she doesn't care about hairstyle as much as we do. And they did behave similar in that episode, even though they behave differently in many other episodes.

Do you suppose Thorax should take assertiveness lessons from Fluttershy or Iron Will?

Replies about the new episode.

Spoiler: New Episode: Triple Threat

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I mean, Starlight is actually quite nice when she's not doing the uber magic thing and instead doing the social Charisma thing.

Spoiler: S7 E15

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Yep! He did well here. I knew he had the social hacker talent in him since the end of S5, and that he may choose to use it.

Spoiler: Season 7 episode 15

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[Ember] She should probably hang with Rainbow Dash a bit, too. [

Can Twilight find a spell to make crystals grow?
Will Thorax ever find a comfortable chair?

Spoiler: S7 E15

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Yes, totally!

Twilight doesn't need such a spell. This is a magical castle that grew out of a tree chest seed, it'll probably regenerate. And I think the group of yaks did more structural damage to the castle in their short rage than Ember does all day.

Are you suggesting that the throne in the changeling hive is powerfully magical but impractical because it is very uncomfortable to sit on? That's possible. In that case, Spike will have to take Thorax to the sofa and quill shop.

Spoiler: Triple Treat

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Considering Spike has been shown to grow crystals, I think the answer would be yes.

Spoiler: S7 E15

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Huh? When was that? I thought they never showed that on screen, partly because it's sort of a secret, and partly because it's a slow process.

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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- Similarly, the idea that Spike is Equestria's official friendship ambassador to the dragons really helps cement the notion of how much Spike achieved last season,

it does get tiring for almost every Spike episode to be entirely a case of "Spike screws up and has to dig himself out".

Spoiler: S7 E15

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I can guess how that happened.

Twilight: “Spike, I think you should visit Ember again, or maybe invite her to Ponyville this time.
Spike (sad face): Ow. That will be a lot of work. Let me think.
(two hours of organizing later)
Spike: Hey, can I call myself Equestria's Official Friendship Ambassador to the dragons for organizing the celebration?
Twilight (barely looking up from a book): Sure, if that makes you feel better about it.

Hey, a princess of Equestria had said yes, so it's an official title now.

Yes. But to be fair, they've done a few such episodes for Twilight and other ponies too, where a pony fails at basic communication and causes all the problems she has to solve.

Spoiler: new episode

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I still don't know why people don't like Starlight. That is all.

Spoiler: S7 E15

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There's a smaller part of the reason that's easy to explain. People liked how the Mane Six had so much screen time in the first four seasons, and they feel Starlight is usurping their place in the story, and possibly also removing the possibility for Sunset Shimmer to appear more on screen. There's also a bigger part which is more difficult to explain, and I might not understand it correctly, about her character and the supposed “redemption” that some people feel was incomplete. I (and Aotrs I think) on the other hand, like Starlight exactly because she's not turned to a completely brainwashed average pony who's forgotten all the interesting parts of his personality and talents from S5.

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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Why is this episode called Triple Threat? After Thorax showed up I expected some third party to show up too.

Spoiler: S7 E14

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Yeah, good question.

[Aotrs Commander]

I owe the fracker that decided it was a good idea to give all the bandits in the inn part of Shackled City a good kicking. They don't have any more need to be personalised than the goblins and such the PCs were killing up until now, and it makes the combats SO mucg more difficult to run; when I've got Bandit 1 to 6, it is so much easier (until they take damage or whatever, it doesn't matter which model is which). In the end, I resorted to referring to them by name to the players just so that they would help me a bit.

[Alabenson]

Spoiler: S7 E15

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I can guess how that happened.

Twilight: “Spike, I think you should visit Ember again, or maybe invite her to Ponyville this time.
Spike (sad face): Ow. That will be a lot of work. Let me think.
(two hours of organizing later)
Spike: Hey, can I call myself Equestria's Official Friendship Ambassador to the dragons for organizing the celebration?
Twilight (barely looking up from a book): Sure, if that makes you feel better about it.

Hey, a princess of Equestria had said yes, so it's an official title now.

Yes. But to be fair, they've done a few such episodes for Twilight and other ponies too, where a pony fails at basic communication and causes all the problems she has to solve.

Spoiler: S7 E15

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While it's true that they have done poor communication episodes for other ponies, the frustration in Spike's case comes from the fact that almost all of his episodes are built around that.

[Aotrs Commander]

Time for new pony...

Spoiler: s7e14

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Spike episode!

Well, I dunno about anyone else, but I enjoyed it.

This episode (aside Spike from channelling far too much Twilight (because we all know in a similar position she would be - and has been - exactly as bad), demonstrated that at least somepony pays attention to his achivements.

(Actually, I like that Spike freaks out like Twilight. It's a real family touch.)

I'm not sure if the Dodgy Magic Table was actually showing Spike more consideration than Twilight and the girls did last week, or it was juts trolling him...

Cameos galore, including Ember and Thorax (and nice to see Lyra and Bonbon getting lines again).

Still, you have to hand it Spike, he sort of did (through the groundwork last time with those two) actually more or less solve his problem indirectly. (One can't imagine Thorax and Ember - the latter anyway getting on without Spike having paved the way.)

So, I liked it. I imagine, then, given the general way Spike episodes go down, everyone else hated it...!



People are going to ship the living frack out of Thorax and Ember now aren't they?

Back through thread...

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Nope, actually, I was wrong. Seems people pretty much liked it.

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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To be honest, I feel like I should have liked this episode a lot more than I did, particularly because it had a lot of very interesting things going on. To start with the good;
- I loved the way they had Spike freaking out in the same way that Twilight would. The special nature of the relationship between Twilight and Spike is probably one of the most underutilized ideas in the show, and the idea that Spike is close enough to Twilight to have picked up some of her habits really works well with that.

- Similarly, the idea that Spike is Equestria's official friendship ambassador to the dragons really helps cement the notion of how much Spike achieved last season, which honestly had some of the best Spike moments in the entire series.
- Finally, I think the idea that the map could potentially call on Spike to solve a friendship problem is particularly intriguing and I think that there's a great deal of story potential there.

Unfortunately, this last point is also something of a weakness for the episode, since having the map alert Spike to a friendship problem didn't facilitate solving that problem (i.e. the Ember/Thorax conundrum), but it actively impeded it since Spike was then further dividing his attention away from his friends looking for an additional problem.
This also ties back into my main issue with the episode, which is yet again we have a Spike episode where Spike is entirely the architect of the main problem. As entertaining as watching Spike try to resolve a problem that could have been solved with a basic amount of communication, it does get tiring for almost every Spike episode to be entirely a case of "Spike screws up and has to dig himself out". I think a large part of this problem could have be alleviated if the writers had at least included a line or two that would have let the audience believe that letting Ember and Thorax meet really would have led to disaster.

That being said, though, it wasn't a bad episode, I think the conflict just needed a little more polish. I'll give it a B-.

Spoiler: s7e14

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Yes, I concur with the first half, and the second is a very valid point, I think. (And why I thought this was a good episode, but not a great one. It wasn't quite over-the-top enough for it to be really funny, only smaile-at, not laugh-out-loud funny.

But yeah, at least we get some acknowledgement (for what little its worth, considering), the table has at least some regard/connection to Spike beyond just giving him a chair. (Though, like I say, it might have been just winding him up. Or it is so hopelessly ineptly vague that it doesn't realise that at some point, that vagueness is going to bcckfire when things don't fall exactly the way it thinks they will or something.)

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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Thorax's new body and stature still doesn't fit his old voice at all. It's so weird. Still not a big fan of the design either. I don't think I'll ever get used to it.

Agreed.

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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Okay, that map is just getting cocky now. If my head started randomly blinking, I'd take a hammer to that thing and tell it to cut the crap out. If it wants to tell me something, it can use words like a normal, civilized ... table.

Spoiler: s7e14

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Double-especially agreed. As usual, all this makes is ask is "where does it keep its brain?"

Spoiler: s7e14

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Last point, almost forgotten - it is worth remembering that for all this episode is mostly a self-inflicted wound (again, *sigh*) but Spike incidently - and rather handily - actually DID fix two small friendship problems entirely himself, just by talking to ponies. Dude - as I have oberved since season one - has got considerable social skills. 'Bout time he gets a few acknowledgements for it.

...

The irony of Spike probably being far more famous than the Mane Six outside of Equestria than in it suddenly struck me.

[zimmerwald1915]

Spoiler: s7e14

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The irony of Spike probably being far more famous than the Mane Six outside of Equestria than in it suddenly struck me.

Pretty sure the erasure of any positive impact the main cast have had on the world has been on the agenda for some time now.

[DigoDragon]

Time for new pony...

Spoiler: s7e14

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I'm not sure if the Dodgy Magic Table was actually showing Spike more consideration than Twilight and the girls did last week, or it was juts trolling him...

Cameos galore, including Ember and Thorax (and nice to see Lyra and Bonbon getting lines again).

Still, you have to hand it Spike, he sort of did (through the groundwork last time with those two) actually more or less solve his problem indirectly. (One can't imagine Thorax and Ember - the latter anyway getting on without Spike having paved the way.)

People are going to ship the living frack out of Thorax and Ember now aren't they?

Spoiler: Triple Thread

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If the table didn't light up, Spike would have been able to concentrate more on resolving the actual problem than not, so I call Table Troll.

And Derpy!

Also, credit to Starlight for standing in as the "smart #1 assistant" this episode. she was pretty helpful throughout.

The ships have been sailing and they are glorious.

Anyone catch the Solar Eclipse over the US yesterday? I got a pretty decent 85% coverage from my area.

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[Aotrs Commander]

HUZZAH!

Accelerate and Attack is finally now released, properlyand everything!

Just quit out of MoO3 (yes, MoO3, tryin' the tropical patch), and the notification came through.

I is now a Published Rules Author. The glory! The power! The unmitigated glory!

Muahahahahahahahahahahaha!

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

...

Yeah, I think I got that out of my system now.

[Rater202]

HUZZAH!

Accelerate and Attack is finally now released, properlyand everything!

Just quit out of MoO3 (yes, MoO3, tryin' the tropical patch), and the notification came through.

I is now a Published Rules Author. The glory! The power! The unmitigated glory!

Muahahahahahahahahahahaha!

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

...

Yeah, I think I got that out of my system now.

So... Just to be clear, is now the time that congratulations are in order?

Becuase if so... Congratulations!

[EsperDerek]

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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I though Triple Threat is okay because Thorax and Ember are fun characters and they seemed to bounce off of each other pretty well, and it was fine seeing Spike in the usual Twilight position after spending about seven seasons teasing Twilight whenever she was in the same position of completely overthinking things. Was happy to see Thorax get his personality back after the last time we saw him.

That being said, it's getting weird that Spike is actively making friends who are adults or close to it, ones that are coming hoping for advice from him, when he's still being depicted at CMC age or younger. Age the poor dude up or something.

[Aotrs Commander]

So... Just to be clear, is now the time that congratulations are in order?

Becuase if so... Congratulations!

It is, and thank you!



Bloody hell, that was fast. One copy sold already and that was just 44 minutes since I got the email with the approval.

(I also had an email from the head chappy, apologising - normally stuff comes out that day, but - of course! - I caught him between GenCon and going to see the eclipse...! Par for my course, really.)

That kinda makes up for it, though!

Spoiler: Triple Threat

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I though Triple Threat is okay because Thorax and Ember are fun characters and they seemed to bounce off of each other pretty well, and it was fine seeing Spike in the usual Twilight position after spending about seven seasons teasing Twilight whenever she was in the same position of completely overthinking things. Was happy to see Thorax get his personality back after the last time we saw him.

That being said, it's getting weird that Spike is actively making friends who are adults or close to it, ones that are coming hoping for advice from him, when he's still being depicted at CMC age or younger. Age the poor dude up or something.

Spoiler: s7e14

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I've been saying from the start that he was never really shown as a child and was probably around the point at which he was technically an adult. (Even in season one, he was left in charge of dependants.)

That said, some mentally-mature young people - especially if they are very bright - do tend to make older friends (like a Lich not so far away, who joined his RPG club at about ten and was the youngets there by about eight years or so...! Mind you, they said I middel-aged at eleven anyway.)

[digiman619]

Random thought: Am I the only one hoping for a time skip for Season 8? Because I think a 2-3 year skip could do some good.

[Manga Shoggoth]

HUZZAH!

Accelerate and Attack is finally now released, properlyand everything!

Just quit out of MoO3 (yes, MoO3, tryin' the tropical patch), and the notification came through.

I is now a Published Rules Author. The glory! The power! The unmitigated glory!

Muahahahahahahahahahahaha!

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

...

Yeah, I think I got that out of my system now.

Congratulations!


With respect to Spike:

Spoiler: *ahem*

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It occured to me yesterday that the way the show is showing Spike could be a little more nuanced than it seems.

In the early episodes we see spike as a kid with connections and (some) charisma. He can write to Celestia, persuade Hoity Toity to come to a fashon show in Ponyville. Twice. After the first one was a disaster. Act as partial peacemaker with a bunch of buffalo... But all the way through he has something of a childish confidence.

Then we have the Crystal Empire - suddenly he is in a situation where things are getting very bad, and equally suddenly it all depends on him. He succeeds, but by the skin of his teeth. After this he seems to have less and less confidence in himself, leading to the current episode with added freakouts.

Perhaps it is an attempt to show spike growing up from a fairly happy-go-lucky child to the draconic equivalent of a teenager/young adult.

I really need to watch some more of this season, but at current rate of progress it will be when the DVD comes out...

[gooddragon1]

Instructions for Ramirez.

Spoiler

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RAMIREZ! TAKE DOWN THAT ENEMY GALLEON WITH A THROWING KNIFE!

[digiman619]

Instructions for Ramirez.

Spoiler

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RAMIREZ! TAKE DOWN THAT ENEMY GALLEON WITH A THROWING KNIFE!

I may be showing my fandom, but when you talk about Ramirez, I think of the one from the Dresden Files.
http://dresdenfiles.wikia.com/wiki/Carlos_Ramirez

[Aotrs Commander]

Played an interesting game this evening. The 240th AccAtt scenario, so with the release, we went back to basics. I went back to scenario 001, the very first one between the NAC and the Cybertanks (which was little more than a list of ships for each side) and used that as the basis for the fleets - to see how much had changed in fourteen years.

The first interesting point was that the NAC, out of the approximate 3500 PV of the orignal fleet, had gained about another 500 points to spend. The second was the way in which organisation had changed. Back in those days - the Full Thrust days - we tended to fly all the ships of the same class together. Now, we (well, mostly me, since I do the majority o the scenario writing) build formations. We don't, for example, use groups of eight much any more, since seven is a better formation. (On in the centre and six in a hexagon around it, which is about the optimum tesselating shape for the shortest line (i.e. PD range) between ships.

I pointed the fleet up to about 4600 for both sides, and made few modifications to the Cybertanks (dropped on corvette, turned one light cruise into and escort variant and added a PD capital ship), just to see how it went.

It was an interesting game. The NAC player started out not the best, flying a little bit too slow, and it was very even otherwise, but I could see at jacking-in time the next round would pretty much go to the NAC. Had the Iniquitous not been TERRIBLE at shooting (sixteen torpedoes over two rounds at 14 on D20 to hit... One. Hit.) it would have been much sharper in favour of the NAC. (Also, the final round's damage control has the Cybertanks display a remarkably uncharacteristic competance and damage control; a 6 on D6 is required to fix a system and I rolled eleven D6 and got SIX sixes. That was, as I said to the NAC player, just being unfair...!)

So, good to know that not THAT much has changed. The NAC did have the hand weighted a bit in their favour by the Cybertank's odd force composition, so that it went in their favour despite frack-ups (and it was dead close otherwise) says I can't have done a bad job...!

[DigoDragon]

Remember ponies?

Spoiler: Florida Edition

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Huh, Sunset sings Bacon Pancakes. Does a better job than Jake from Adventure Time. ^^;

Okay, I wanna see more Trixie/Starlight like this. Hilarious! ^_^

[DigoDragon]

New pony? New pony.

Spoiler: Campfire Tales

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Decent. Cute. I like the varying pony model designs. We got celtic ponies with interesting facial hair, asian unicorns with long curved horns, and... pegasi I guess (well, magic shield is nice). I headcanon that was actually Torch in his younger days. They love centuries so why not?

Flyders sound like something you'd find in Florida. Ick.

[Appleshy1973]

Spoiler: s7

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I thought the sphinx would be here. But maybe the sphinx will be in Daring Don't.

[Deadly]

Spoiler: Campfire Tales

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Flying spiders? AAAHHHH! KILL THEM! KILL THEM WITH ALL THE FIRE!

Fly-ders ... of course. Gotta have a punny name for the horrible flying spiders. Aaand I think I just lost all desire to go live in Equestria. Almost. I mean, the way things are here ... maybe even flying spiders can be tolerated.

Ponies heal fast

Viking ponies! Woooo!

Well that sure sounded like a tall tale. I guess AJ, as honest as she is, isn't above telling a little yarn. I notice though, it seems he hits something with the shovel, and it is this something that magically transforms him. But we never see what it is, since he plows right through it the next moment.

I would like to know how Rarity did those shadows with her hooves ... ooooor perhaps I don't wanna know, actually, come to think of it.

Is that asian ponies?

I guess throwing the evil pony in prison and rebuilding the good old-fashioned way with hard work and collaboration isn't the unicorn way.

Quick thinking Dash. A little too quick, maybe

Scootaloo is taking the scaredy-pony role a bit far this episode, which I found a bit detracting from the overall pleasure of the episode. This certainly wasn't another Sleepless in Ponyville, but it wasn't bad. I liked it, and I always enjoy exciting and adventurous tales from exotic places and distant times, so definitely appreciated. Can haz more plz?

Edit: Small observation, but I'd just like to point out that

Spoiler: Campfire Tales

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What Mistmane does is pretty much what Rarity did in my fanfic Mare in the Mirror, which I wrote years ago. Pretty cool of me ^^

[Thanqol]

Spoiler

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This was my favourite episode of S7 by a mile, and is even an entry into my favourite episodes of all time. Class act top to finish, virtues crystal clear. Good work cartoon horse program, you've reminded me why I love you.

[Aotrs Commander]

So, went on a steam train today, as it was Pestbag's birthday. Inspired me to pick up openTTD for the first time in quite a while. (I really need to remember that as something I legitimately CAN play just for an hour or two almost casually.)

Updated to the latest version and found that some of my vehicles are now generating negative income that exceeds their running costs. So that's new. (Not sure if bug or new working as intended...)

Next job: New Pony Watching.

[digiman619]

Spoiler: Flyder-Man, Flyder-Man, does whatever a flyder can!

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This is a solid episode. It isn't as ambitious as A Royal Problem or The Perfect Pear, but what it does, it does really well. Side note: am I the only one who thinks that Flash Magnus is a possible ancestor of Flash Sentry? Or at least is his namesake?

[Aotrs Commander]

Spoiler: s7e16

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That was an okay episode.

Scootaloo's freakouts were the highlight, I think, but the legends themselves were of escalating interest.

Though I found the curved, pointy-eared not-Chinese unicorns to be interesting.

Dash's was definitely the best (we have been a bit light on actual combat threat this last season or two).

Other than that, this episode didn't particularly grab me, it felt very middle of the road to me.



So, maybe Flash Sentry is a decendant of Flash Magnum? (Maybe some of the awesome will rub off and everypony wills top ragging on him so much? But I doubt it...)

Right, back through thread...

Spoiler

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This was my favourite episode of S7 by a mile, and is even an entry into my favourite episodes of all time. Class act top to finish, virtues crystal clear. Good work cartoon horse program, you've reminded me why I love you.

Spoiler: s7e16

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Huh. That's interesting.

I am curious now - what exactly got you so invested? I found it mildly interesting, and a bit of action (even vicariously) was something we've lacked for a while, but I didn't find it particularly compelling myself.

Spoiler: Flyder-Man, Flyder-Man, does whatever a flyder can!

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This is a solid episode. It isn't as ambitious as A Royal Problem or The Perfect Pear, but what it does, it does really well. Side note: am I the only one who thinks that Flash Magnus is a possible ancestor of Flash Sentry? Or at least is his namesake?

Apparently not.